Tuesday, April 29, 2014

The Connecticut Senate today unanimously passed consumer protections for electric customers that advocacy groups say are inadequate and should be strengthened once the bill comes before the House of Representatives.

Legislators celebrated bipartisan passage of a bill that addresses a major source of constituent complaints, especially from the elderly: aggressive marketing by electric suppliers, some of whom entice customers with low teaser rates that jump with little warning.

“Maybe not everything that every advocacy group wants is in this bill, but this bill moves us forward in a giant way,” said Senate President Pro Tem Donald E. Williams Jr. , D-Brooklyn, who stood with AARP in January to pledge passage of the law.

But AARP, the Connecticut Citizen Action Group, ConnPIRG and the Legal Assistance Resource Center say the bill was too deferential to the interests of electric retailers in that it failed to cap variable rates. They were lobbying House members to make changes.